Nigerian mobility startup Max.ng has raised an undisclosed amount in a new round of funding. Expectedly, the new round of funding will boost the startup’s competitive edge in the fast-rising and competitive Nigerian bike-hailing industry.
According to a report, the latest funding secured is between USD 5 Million and USD 7 Million making this round of funding arguably the biggest bike-sharing single funding round in Nigeria.
The identities of the investors have not been revealed but the company has disclosed the investors also backed Singapore’s Grab. Grab is a bike-hailing startup based in Southeast Asia, competing with Go-Jek for market share.
The firm recently raised USD 1.5 Bn from SoftBank Group Corps’ Vision Fund, and with total funding of USD 8.8 Bn (raised across 25 rounds), has a total of 17 investors, two of which have participated in Max .ng’s latest funding.
With this latest round of investment, the Max.ng has raised about USD 6 Mn since its inception in 2015.
The company told Reuters: “What we’ve done is to look at the market in Nigeria and across the region and say ‘what pieces are missing?’: financial infrastructure for mobility doesn’t exist, ride-hailing technology for two-wheeled and three-wheeled mobility doesn’t exist,” Bamiduro told Reuters.
It is interesting to know that Max.ng is the first bike-hailing company in Nigeria and the company has since inception expanded geographically. It currently operates in three states in Nigeria and hopes to expand to the fourth armed with its new funding.
As part of its expansion plan, Max.ng aims to expand to other West African countries with eyes set on Ghana and Cote’d Ivoire before the year runs out.
Also, the mobility startup wants to double down on its rides and hopes to increase patronage to 2 million by the midpoint of 2020. Impressively, the startup’s total rides completed is around 200,000.
Competitors like new Lagos entrant ORide are also not slacking. The new bike-hailing company relies on a USD 40 Million funding created by the parent company Opera Software to invest in Africa. Also, there is the ambitious Gokada which recently raised USD 5.3 Mn from Rise Capital to expand operations, after which it announced the earlier-than-anticipated unveiling of its boat-hailing arm, GBoat.
Forcing its way to be a force to be reckoned with in the market, Gokada audaciously began offering rides to any destination in Lagos for a whopping NGN 100 on a promotional level this June.
Nigeria has a big market of more than 190 million people. Hopefully, this competition will give birth to many more developments in the already laborious transport system in the country.
